The Labor Department reported on Friday that the economy had gained 209,000 jobs in July. That doesn’t keep up with the birthrate. Economists had predicted a gain of 230,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 6.1%, so 6.2% was a disappointing jobs number. Not good. Average hourly earnings increased by a yearly gain of a precise 0.2¢, but wage growth has been stagnant for most of the, um, economic recovery. It’s a weak economy, stumbling along in near-stall speed. President Obama proved once again in his weekly address that he remains remarkably clueless.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: This morning we learned that our economy created over 200,000 new jobs in July. That’s on top of about 300,000 new jobs in June. So we are now in a six-month streak with at least 200,000 new jobs each month. That’s the first time that has happened since 1997. Over the past year, we’ve added more jobs than any year since 2006. All told, our businesses have created 9.9 million new jobs over the past 53 units. That’s the longest streak of private sector job creation in our history.

As we saw on Wednesday, the economy grew at a strong pace in the spring. Companies are investing, consumers are spending and American manufacturing, energy, technology, autos all are booming. And thanks to the decisions that we’ve made and the resilience of the American people, we’ve recovered faster and come farther from the recession than almost any other advanced country on earth. So the good news is the economy clearly is getting stronger, things are getting better, engines are revving a little bit louder.

Well, no it isn’t, things aren’t getting better, and the engines are stalled. Democrats have become the party of economic control. If things aren’t going well, it’ because we need more rules. If something is not working Obama will fix it with his pen and his phone. Nobody knows what comes next. We’re told ObamaCare premiums are about to skyrocket—precisely how much? Who knows? The IRS is crooked. The EPA may descend on you for disobeying an order you never heard of. They just descended on a woman in South Carolina and confiscated her elderly Range Rover — she has no idea why. The president and the press lie to us. I think everyone has the feeling that government departments may be told to misrepresent their numbers, but I don’t know that to be the case, I’ve just lost several degrees of trust.

The press continues to describe the influx of illegal alien young people, OTM (other than Mexican), mothers with small children, Muslims, Chinese, Mara-Salvatucha gang members, as little children who are fleeing violence and poverty in their country. No, they are not. The kids have been questioned and they are not fleeing violence, they are coming in response to Obama’s offer of amnesty. 80%, according to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) are young men 16 and 17 years of age. Now we learn that planeloads of them have been sent to Hawaii and Alaska. The airline tickets back home to Central America would be cheaper.

Employers can, intentionally or unintentionally, abuse the H-1B visa program, which permit businesses to employ foreign workers when qualified Americans are unavailable. Americans may be overlooked, because they demand higher wages, or are not networked with immigrants that are already employed in technical and managerial positions.

The economy has created only about 6 million new jobs during the Bush-Obama years, whereas the comparable figure during the Reagan-Clinton period was about 40 million. A recent study by the Center for Immigration Studies indicates that virtually all the new jobs created since 2000 went to immigrants, whereas none were created for native-born Americans.